All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

A number of retired military generals who now work for private defense firms are still advising the military -- with no obligation to disclose their ties to the defense contractors to the government, according to a report from USA Today published Wednesday. That needs to change, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the newspaper in an interview published today.

USA Today's investigation found that 80 percent of the retired generals and admirals who now serve as "senior mentors" for the military have financial ties to defense contractors. Not only are they not obligated to report those ties, the senior mentors are also exempt from ethics rules that apply to part-time federal employees because they are hired as independent contractors.

McCain told the newspaper that those paid by defense contractors should be barred from mentoring at war games that present a conflict of interest. Furthermore, he said, they should have to disclose their financial ties.

"I'm sure most of them would have no problem with that," he said. "The important thing is that they avoid the appearance of conflict."

McCain is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Two Democratic senators on the committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Jim Webb of Virginia, also said there should be new disclosure rules. Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), chair of the defense subcommittee for the House Appropriations Committee, said he has asked the Defense Department to immediately provide his panel with justification and criteria for the work of the "senior mentor" program.

The ties between the public and private sectors go beyond the military. The Huffington Post points to a 2004 study that found 291 former high-ranking government officials serving as lobbyists, board members or executives at contracting firms that benefit from federal contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

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As the United States marks eight years of military engagement in Afghanistan, a majority of Americans think that war is going badly for the U.S. and they are divided on whether the United States is doing the right thing by being involved there now.

This is a reversal from October 2001, when the U.S. began military action in Afghanistan. With the country still reeling from the September 11th attacks, support for military action in Afghanistan was high and broad. Ninety percent of Americans approved of it, including solid majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.


CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan



But eight years later the country is split on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, according to a CBS News/New York Times Poll conduced September 19-23. Forty-seven percent say the U.S. is doing the right thing by fighting there, but 42 percent think the U.S. should not be involved. And there is a partisan divide now; most Republicans say the U.S. is doing the right thing, while most Democrats disagree. Independents are divided.

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The war in Afghanistan is "fundamental to the defense of our people," President Obama said Monday, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference in Phoenix, Ariz. -- but the fight will not be easy.

"The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight. And we won’t defeat it overnight," the president said. "But we must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9-11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

The president said he is increasing financial support for both the military and veterans, but that waste will need to be rooted out of the system. He announced a new competition, challenging all 57 regional Veterans Affairs offices to come up with the most efficient ways to harness information technologies and breakthrough the bureaucracy.

"And then we're going to fund the best ideas and put them into action," the president said. "All with a simple mission—cut those backlogs, slash those wait times and deliver your benefits sooner."

The president's chief performance officer, chief technology officer and chief information officer will work with VA Secretary Shinseki to reform the system.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), at left, has announced, in a press release, that the Senate Armed Service Committee will hold a hearing this fall on the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Signed into law by former President Clinton, the policy forbids openly gay and lesbian personnel from serving in the military. According to the press release, an estimated 13,000 service members have been removed from duty since 1993 based on their sexual orientation.

According to a report from the Center for American Progress, 265 people have been discharged since President Obama took office.

"This policy is wrong for our national security and wrong for the moral foundation upon which our country was founded,'" Gillibrand said. "'Don't ask, don't Tell' is an unfair, outdated measure that violates the civil rights of some of our bravest, most heroic men and women. By repealing this policy, we will increase America's strength - both militarily and morally."

Gillibrand also said such measures are costly, saying that it takes $95.1 million to replace gay personnel with new recruits.

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The Pentagon said today that it will not ban the use of tobacco in the military, the Associated Press reports.

The announcement comes after a study commissioned by the Pentagon and the Department of Veteran Affairs recommended terminating the use and sale of tobacco products on military property. The study also recommended the military ensure enlistees are smoke-free.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't want to add to the stress levels of troops fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by taking away tobacco products. He also said that Gates plans on pursuing the goal of a smoke-free military, according to the AP.

When the news broke that the Pentagon was considering a tobacco ban, many voices came out in protest. Jeff Emanuel wrote in a CBSNews.com op-ed that the servicemembers shouldn't be subject to a blanket smoking ban.

"Yes, tobacco has been proven to cause both short and long-term health problems - but are we really going to preach about health benefits of their activities to Americans we pay (albeit poorly) to be shot at for a living?" Emanuel asked.

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President Obama's reiterated Wednesday that he is prepared to veto the 2010 defense appropriations bill if the version that crosses his desk authorizes $1.75 billion in funding to continue building F-22 Stealth Fighters, also known as Raptors.

With the cost of building one new F-22 coming in at just under a quarter billion dollars, that's enough for seven more planes.

As the White House notes in a statement, "the collective judgment of the Service Chiefs and Secretaries of the military departments determined that a final program of record of 187 F-22s is sufficient to meet operational requirements."

Though some Air Force leaders have suggested that more F-22s are needed, the White House's point seems difficult to argue: As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted in February, "the reality is we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater."

On Monday, the president wrote a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee stating flatly, "we do not need these planes."

"To continue to procure additional F-22s would be to waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with weapons that they actually do need," he wrote.

Gates, who would prefer to build F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, has been pushing for a shift in focus of military spending toward counterinsurgency preparedness. He calls the F-22 "a niche, silver-bullet solution required for a limited number of scenarios."

Yet members of both parties in Congress are pushing through funding for the F-22s. The reason? Jobs. Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the plane, says 95,000 jobs would be lost in a variety of states if F-22s stop being built. The company has spent millions lobbying to keep the airplane in production, according to National Public Radio.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center today sent a letter (PDF) to members of Congress asking for an investigation into "the threat posed by racial extremists who may be serving in the military to ensure that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists."

The SPLC says it has found "dozens of personal profiles of individuals listing 'military' as their occupation on a neo-Nazi, Facebook-type website." (The site is called New Saxon, and it bills itself as "A Social Networking Site for People of European Descent" and an "online community for whites by whites.") The group complains that the Pentagon has failed to take "forceful action" against extremists in the military despite acknowledging in a 2008 report that the problem has gotten worse.
"While the military has discharged more than 12,500 service members because of their alleged homosexuality since 1994, it has refused to adopt a true 'zero tolerance' policy when it comes to extremists in the military," the group wrote in a letter to supporters.

The group writes that extremists in the military are a threat not just to Americans but to fellow troops.

"The fundamental problem is that Department of Defense regulations prohibiting 'active participation' in extremist groups are inadequate because they can be — and apparently are being — interpreted to allow members of the armed forces to be 'mere members' of hate groups or to engage in unaffiliated extremist activities, such as posting racist and anti-Semitic messages to social networking websites and email lists or maintaining online profiles filled with racist materials," said the SPLC in its letter to Congress.

Stars and Stripes calls the Web site where SPLC found the profiles "Facebook for the fascist set."

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Health experts at the Pentagon want a ban on the sale and use of tobacco in the military, USA Today reports.

A study commissioned by the Pentagon and Veteran Affairs recommends banning the product in phases over the next several years. Additionally, it suggests that “achieving a tobacco-free military begins by closing the pipeline of new tobacco users entering the military and by promoting cessation programs to ensure abstinence” – which means requiring all enlisting members to be tobacco-free, Army.com reports.

As the head of the Pentagon’s office of clinical and program policy, Jack Smith told USA Today that he will be urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to adopt the proposals set forth by the study. It finds that tobacco use costs the Pentagon nearly $846 million each year. $6 billion is spent by the Department of Veteran Affairs on treating tobacco-related illnesses as well.

The Pentagon requested the study in 2007, according to Army.com. It found one in three service members currently use tobacco products, and that the heaviest smokers are in the Army and Marines. The study also found that tobacco use has risen since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, suggesting a direct correlation between combat and tobacco use.

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Rep. Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Iraq war veteran, today called for an end to the "discriminatory" policy known as "don't ask, don't tell" that prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

"The policy is not working for armed services, and it hurts our national security," Murphy (pictured at left) said at a speech at Washington's National Press Club, where he appeared with gay and straight service members supporting repeal of the policy.

The event was a kickoff to the "Voices Of Honor" national tour sponsored by gay rights groups the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers United that features members of the military who oppose the Clinton-era compromise that allows gays to serve only if they keep their sexuality a secret. Murphy's office also helped set up a Web site called www.letthemserve.com.

"Opponents of lifting the ban argue that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly will be detrimental to unit cohesion and morale," the congressman said. "As a former officer and West Point professor, that is an insult to me and to all of the troops serving in uniform. In Iraq, my men did not care what race, color, creed or sexual orientation their fellow paratroopers were. They cared about getting the job done. We cared about serving with honor and coming home alive." (Watch Murphy's full remarks here.)

Murphy vowed to take the lead in pushing through Congress the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would overturn the policy. He noted that President Obama has vowed to sign the bill if it crosses his desk and said it is Congress' responsibility to make that happen.

The president has taken heat from gay rights groups for not pushing harder for the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" or the Defense Of Marriage Act, something he promised to work toward as a candidate. Gay rights groups were particularly outraged by a brief filed by the Obama Justice Department defending DOMA that compared gay marriage to marriage between family members.

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President Obama and Russian Presdient Dmitry Medvedev on Monday announced a series of agreements between their two countries, including new commitments to work together in Afghanistan.

The two presidents signed a joint statement on cooperation that outlines concrete areas in which the United States and Russia will work together to attempt to stabilize and secure Afghanistan. During President Obama's trip to Moscow, the two leaders also oversaw a formalized agreement to allow the United States to transport military personnel and equipment across Russia to Afghanistan, as well as a new framework for resuming military-to-military cooperation.

"This provides a framkework for improved cooperation... so we can better address the threats we face from terrorism," Mr. Obama said on Monday in a joint press conference with Medvedev from Moscow.

In their joint statement on Afghanistan, Mr. Obama and Medvedev express their commitment to fighting terrorism, armed extremism and illegal drug trafficking in Afghanistan, and to helping the Afghan government reach its socioeconomic objectives like raising living standards and ensuring security. The two presidents state they will make use of the Russian-U.S. Counter-Terrorism Working Group to achieve its objectives.

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